Tuesday, January 2, 2018

Top 10 photos of 2017

and, as usual, by 10 I mean 13 because I can never ever whittle it down to just 10, and it's my blog so I can keep more if I want to. ***inset stomping foot and pouting here***

I saw my photography get darker in 2017. In years past my images were usually bright, bold and airy, and many still are, but in 2017 there were literally just more frames that were darker. I still see the bold striking colors and contrast that I'm always drawn to. But there's just more darkness this year, more blacks, shadows and low light settings. Maybe that translates to more soulful images. I don't know.

So here are my top pics from the last year.

This pic of Jude was taken in early 2017 at The Little Cabin in the Woods. I love the pops of colors in the fall leaves behind him, but the snow on the ground too that shows the transition of seasons. Not so mention those red cheeks on that adorable face!

I found myself fascinated and looking for low-light settings this year to photograph in. Sometimes a photographer just gets lucky and life happens in the light you've been watching.

This image, so small on the www doesn't do it justice. It's so so much better bigger like a pano should be. This pic is several frames stitches together into a big long panorama. It was taken at a beautiful park with the city in the distance, in Guangzhou, Guangdong, China, Ru's first home. For the China adoption mamas reading this, this is the "other" park right down the street from the China hotel. We visited it a lot in those first few days together. It's Ru's home. I'm hoping to find someplace that will do a big panorama canvas for us of this one.

I got lucky with this photo, all of them in great light and connecting together. It was taken only a couple weeks after we had gotten home. I want Ru to feel this familial love and embrace forever. Don't we all?!

This is my favorite macro image from 2017. It's a sago palm uncurling it's new baby palm fronds in the spring. I'm always fascinated with the world of macro and the little ordinary miracles it brings to life.

I adore this photo not just because it has the man that has been my partner in life for so long and the little man that just entered it, but also because it really perfectly represents this season of life we're currently in. When our babies were little, Papa was very the one that would often take them in the middle of the night to calm them, and I'd find them like this, both asleep, a baby on his chest. Although our new little man is bigger and older, he's no different. Often he just needs the things he missed along the way. How lucky we re to give him that?

The "dawn patrol" at the 2017 Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta in October. This was such a wonderful trip for our family. There's something about hot air balloons that is magical too and bring us all right back to our childhood, no matter how old we are.

This sweet little one is getting older but still dresses in princess dresses, fairy wings and capes, sparkly crowns or cat ears every moment that she can. I love love love the way this images captures that. The way she races off the frame with her fingers out stretched and her little foot off the ground. This image is very much her and all she is within.

I wish this pic had all of us, but still... Zombies. Chinese victory symbol and smiling faces. 3 things that really don't go together at all, but somehow it jsut works... just like us!

Recently I forced myself to select a single favorite/best pic for 2017. This was the one I chose. There's a lot here, compositionally, figuratively, a lot more it says about where we are right now. Being a teenager is hard in many ways. And beautiful. And amazing. And this young man who is barely a teen anymore, still takes my breath away all the time. Being the mama to a man is something I'm still getting used to.

I loved this pic the very first time I saw it on the back of the camera. Some photos just do that. I was free-lensing and both the strange depth of field and the purple pink tones coming from the upper right are from this photography technique. Not to mention that the contradiction of delicate flowers on cacti are always pretty amazing.

This one's just magic to me. Sparkly and dark but still with the blue of the sky poking between the branches. I think I love it because it's how I want to find us as a family forever, together working some project or another.

I've had a couple people ask me it this pic was posed. It wasn't. She literally was trying to teach him about Christmas (specially What Christmas ornaments were) as they sat by the tree. It's everything about his first Christmas. It was a very special and highly anticipated holiday for us this year. And it did not disappoint!

Happy 2018, my friends! I hope it brings you all you've been dreaming of!

4 yrs - the average time a child spends in American foster care before being adopted

1.5 million children live in public care in Central and Eastern Europe

12.4 million orphans live in Latin America and the Carribean

43.4 million orphans live in sub-Saharan Africa

87.6 million orphans live in Asia

16 million children were orphaned in 2003

Every 14 seconds a child is orphaned as a result of AIDS

400,000+ children in the American Foster Care in 2011

20,000+ young people "age out" of the U.S. foster care system each year. Of these only a little over half will earn a high school diploma.

147 million orphans in the world

SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT...

"Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier. Be the living expression of God's kindness. Kindness in your face. Kindness in your eyes. Kindness in your smile." ~Mother Teresa

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